SEWER-GAS. 7 



This sufficiently explains the immunity which adults usually enjoy, 

 and especially those who are most of the time away from home and in 

 the open air. 



Typhoid fever has long been known to be caused by sewer emana- 

 tions. It is quite true that this is not its only source, but it is prob- 

 able that in all large cities, where sewer-pipes are connected with 

 the houses, sewer-gas causes more typhoid fever than all other causes 

 combined. In the country, also, and especially in the large hotels at 

 fashionable watering-places, examples of sickness and death from this 

 source are alarmingly frequent. 



Diphtheria must be classed among the diseases which in all proba- 

 bility are, in many cases, caused or conveyed by sewer-gas. The testi- 

 mony upon this point is so well-nigh conclusive that many medical 

 men accept it as an established fact. For myself, I do not entertain 

 a doubt upon the subject ; and this is the opinion of Professor Willard 

 Parker, as expressed at the Academy. 



In the report of the Michigan State Board of Health for 1881 oc- 

 curs the following passage : 



It is probable tbat tbe contagium of diphtheria may retain its virulence for 

 some time, and be carried a long distance, in various substances and articles in 

 wbicb it may have found lodgment. Diphtheria contracted from germs carried 

 several blocks in a sewer may perhaps be as fatal as when contracted by direct 

 exposure to one sick with it. "While it is not definitely proved that the germs 

 of diphtheria are propagated in any substance outside the living human or animal 

 body, it is possible that they may be found to be thus propagated. 



Dr. Janeway, addressing the Academy, said : 



It is hard to distinguish between sickness from sewer-gas and sickness 

 caused by noxious disease-germs conveyed in the sewers. Small-pox may come 

 from germs in the sewers, but no one would attribute it to sewer-gas. In regard 

 to diphtheria, however, it is less plain. The portability of diphtheritic poison is 

 greater than is supposed. 



Scarlatina. Professor Barker declared to the Academy that sewer- 

 gas malaria had often, in his experience, been found to complicate 

 scarlatina, and render fatal an attack which might otherwise have 

 ended in recovery. 



Dr. Alfred Carpenter, of London, a well-known physician and sani- 

 tarian, has in a paper of considerable length, published in " The Sani- 

 tary Record," London, for March 15, 1882, related many examples in 

 which scarlatina was propagated, perpetuated, and intensified by sewer- 

 gas ; the result of his careful observations being that in many cases, 

 in order to render the scarlatinous germs which came through the 

 sewers capable of successful inoculation, the patients need to have 

 been exposed for some time to the debilitating influences of the sewer- 

 gas ; in other words, as he affirms, a suitable soil must have been cre- 

 ated in these persons. In a letter addressed to me, dated Duppas 



